Cooking Most Deadly: An Angie Amalfi Mystery (Angie Amalfi Mysteries)

Lots of t'ings to t'ink about in this novel. Love, love, love the geriatric cons and their accented dialogue. Pence's Angie books have shoved out of my keyboard words like "favorite"; "most"; and "best." Each time I read another of her novels everything is so superb and supreme, I feel like I'm burping the trite & cliche because I run out of superlatives. This time, I'm forced to toss any effort to spout super syntax in my raving. COOKING MOST DEADLY has literally gone too far out on several limbs with an enormous variety of high quality reading appeals, especially to my entertainment escape needs, my raison d'etre (reason for being) within the pages of a novel. When I picked up this novel (# 4 in the series), I had already read and reviewed IF COOKS COULD KILL (# 10), so I knew that Angie would develop a friendship with the geriatric ex-cons, and I had already vicariously dined in their restaurant, Wings of an Angel. Instead of this prior plot knowledge spoiling my read of CMD, it enhanced the panache. I was overwhelmingly curious to see exactly how the relationship between Angie and these three grumpy old guys would go from Angie being an unwelcome first "customer" in a "restaurant" which was not, and which had no name and no menu, almost no cook. The plot, as it worked the expansion of the restaurant (from "open" to open), as it developed the relationships centering around the cafe, kidnaped my involvment better than any other evolving situation in this series. I suppose I have a weakness for any type of failure being regenerated into the warmest, coziest type of success, especially for people and their places which have long been stuck in the upset underbelly of the opposite of utopia. The slapstick scenes in the café were some of the funniest I've read, anywhere. Pence does food slips & slithers in the best of taste and the worst of pomposity (pomposity dissolves or dies in Angie's spirited presence). I laughed out loud too often reading this book, usually with gleeful gusto, though a couple times with restrained spits. During one of the exuberant explosions, I was laid back in my easy chair next to the sofa on which my coal miner husband was sleeping his last hour prior to leaving for his night shift. Reading CMD, I was unexpectedly caught by a case of the giggles and couldn't escape the need (unsuccessfully restraining puff-like sneezes and huffing hiccups), and was forced to quickly and "quietly" vacate the living room, clutching book to mouth, to find another reading location which would allow at least a muffled type of regularly renewed giggling gags. I'm looking at the sunrise of 59 years old this month, and, yes, I still have hysterical giggling fits, but not often. If you recall, I mentioned a variety of high quality appeals to reading entertainment in this book. The funny scenes were balanced amazingly adeptly with the dark realism of the mind and machinations of a serial killer. Since Pence had been developin

You will have to read the book to find out, but it sure is a doozey! I loved this book as I have all of the previous ones in the series, but this one is the funniest so far. I actually found myself laughing out loud a number of times. Pence keeps getting better; the story grabs you, the mystery keeps you guessing and the romance is great - what more can a person ask for!

As a great reader of mystery books, I can honestly say Joanna Pence is one of the best writers I've read recently and I've read a lot! Fast paced and interesting! Hopefully she and her homicide detective will continue through many more books in this series.

This one has it all - suspense, romance and humor. If you haven't read any of these books, start at the beginning of the series and keep reading. Even though this isn't the last one, it's my favorite. I hope Joanne Pence keeps turning out the Angie Amalfi books.